After reading several of the threads about how the new bats are performing, I started to wonder if this would significantly change the way Colleges started to recruit.
Here is a good take from one coach that say's it has changed how he recruits.
Size matters for U of M baseball
Weaker bats influence Schoenrock's recruiting
By Phil Stukenborg
Memphis Commercial Appeal
During his 25 years in the game, University of Memphis baseball coach Daron Schoenrock has sought varied attributes from a recruiting class. Sometimes the priority has been on pitching, other times on speed and defense.
As he received the final faxes a few weeks ago from his 10-member 2011 class, it was clear Schoenrock had taken into account a new NCAA standard regarding aluminum bats. The NCAA is reducing their power, a change that takes effect during the 2011 season and should make the aluminum models perform similarly to wood bats, which are not used in the college game.
The NCAA's Baseball Rules Committee wanted to eliminate the ''trampoline effect'' a batted ball possessed coming off an aluminum bat.
Schoenrock said the NCAA's decision affected his decisions. The recent signing class, which included local products Zac Carter and Craig Caulfield of Houston High and Tucker Tubbs from Collierville, is filled with players 6-2 or taller. Caulfield and Tubbs are 6-4. Carter is 6-3.
Among the others in the class are two left-handed-hitting catchers — Keaton Aldridge of Glenwood (Ala.) High and Carter White from Hoover, Ala. — and infielder Bryce Beeler, who hit 14 home runs and drove in a school-record 69 runs last season for Knoxville Halls. Aldridge and Beeler are 6-2.
''Our emphasis on size had partially to do with the scaled-down bats,'' said Schoenrock, whose signing class doesn't join the Tiger program until the 2011-12 school year. ''And now, looking around our league, we'll look more like what we see when we play Rice, East Carolina and Southern Miss.
''I've always been impressed by how big and physical their position players have been and by the fact they didn't run out of gas in May (toward the end of the regular season).''
Schoenrock, beginning his seventh season at the U of M, said the new NCAA bat performance standard is being implemented, in part, because of pressure from television, which wants to eliminate lengthy games with teams scoring in the teens.
''It was scaled down about three years ago and I thought that was fine,'' Schoenrock said. ''I think the consensus around college baseball was it was fine, too.
''This (recent) change is the biggest in my 25 years of coaching. They've tinkered with the size of the sweet spot and changed the exit velocity. Batted balls will have less carry than before. There'll be fewer jam jobs or flares dropping in (the outfield) with the smaller sweet spot. It will (perform) more like a wooden bat. When a pitcher (forces a batter to hit a ball off the handle), it'll be a pop up to short.''
more...
http://www.commercialappeal.co...-matters-for-u-of-m/
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